Where Aimee Mann grew up in Virginia, the southern rock of Lyrnyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers was on the radio and blasting out of the stereos of every Ford Camaro that cruised the streets. Mann rebelled by discovering the Sex Pistols and Devo, but one listen to her new album, The Forgotten Arm, will prove that you can take the girl out of the south (she lives in Los Angeles), but the south will rise again whether the girl likes it or not. A concept album about a boxer returning from Vietnam to travel across the US with his girlfriend, The Forgotten Arm is an ode to working class America in both sound and content.

The Forgotten Arm comes as a statement of freedom, too. A big name in the US, Mann's career has been blighted by battles with record companies ever since she started in the mid-1980s. When her label Interscope underwent a merger three years ago she was told to make more commercial music, despite having had success with her soundtrack to the film Magnolia. So she left and set up her own label. "I overheard a conversation where the bosses were talking about what a terrible disappointment the last Sheryl Crow record was - because it had only sold a million and a half records," she explains on her decision to break rank. "Then I had a meeting with the bosses and they hadn't even bothered to listen to my record. But they believed that with a bit of expert tinkering I could be turned into Avril Lavigne. At that point I thought: forget it."

Mann certainly doesn't look like Avril Lavigne. She's twice her age, a foot taller, and her main interest in life, outside of her work, is boxing. "I don't like getting punched in the nose," she says, "but it's a lot better than courting fame. When I started performing in the 1980s I became very recognisable quickly and I didn't like it at all. You get stalkers that you have to be nice to, because you don't know if they're fans or maniacs. Getting followed around is really creepy. Now my fame level is low, but my income is higher than it would be if I were on a major label. It's the best of both worlds."

Mann has a tendency to get deeply involved with a single record or film to the exclusion of all others. Recently it has been The Last Waltz, the film that Martin Scorsese made about the Band's final star-studded concert, where everyone from Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell queued up to do cameos. "The guys were playing it on the tour bus, and that's when I realised I wanted to make a record with a live, country rock sound to it," she says. "What really impressed me was that the Band looked so cool and sounded so great, and created this camaraderie on stage. It was what music should be about: a sense of friendship. It's a sweet feeling."

Rod Stewart is one of Mann's favourite singers. She grew up listening to his songs and she admires his haircut. "His songs are so good, they make my stomach hurt," she says. "When I focus on something I can't get off it, and for me it was Rod Stewart's hits in the 1970s, like Maggie May and Mandolin Wind. And although he has spawned a lot of unfortunate American versions of his hairstyle, he carries it off well."

Mann brings out Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John as another classic, particularly for his song My Father's Gun. "Again, I couldn't get away from that song - like Maggie May, I must have listened to it over 1,000 times. It had a southern rock flavour but filtered through an English sensibility."

It's taken Mann a long time to accept that she does actually like southern rock. "Every time you ask for any requests, some jackass will yell Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd," she says, going on to explain that where she grew up there was no escape from Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Rolling Stones, who managed to sound like they were from Georgia despite being raised in the Home Counties. "I like bands like Black Oak Arkansas and the Allman Brothers now, but I've always had this prejudice against the way Mick Jagger tries to sound like he's from the south when he's not. As a kid I wanted to ask him: 'Why do you want to sound like a hayseed?' It really bugged me."

On the tour bus these days, Mann watches boxing movies. She doesn't look like a boxer - she's very thin, for a start - but it has become something of an obsession. Her current favourite film is Requiem for a Heavyweight, in which Anthony Quinn stars as a boxer who fights fixed bouts for the underworld, and ends up as a brain-damaged derelict. "It's the classic, tragic story," she says. "But it also shows the glory of boxing. When you realise that you can take a punch, it's an amazing thing. I've learnt something important: getting hit is not that bad."